The Reason

I know this may appear to be a little callous. And perhaps it is.

But I'm moved to nausea listening to the "claims for a public enquiry" into the death of the Brazilian man shot in London.

I'm aware, well and truly, that a family needs closure. From airplane crashes, from boating accidents, from the Holocaust. But they're asking, demanding actually, that they be given a reason that their son (who, like all innocent men in death, had the sun emanating directly from his rectum) was shot.

I'm pretty sure that given everything I've watched, that we've all been given an appropriate and full account of what happened - one that should suffice even for a bereaved family. The man was followed from his home (that was, we know now, housing other confirmed terrorists), to the subway; where he ignored orders by the police to stop, drop and confess. He didn't, he ran, he was shot 7 times in the head.

Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Chief, is now under attack for attempting to halt the full and transparent (as if we could have a demi-opaque) public enquiry. The man has a city of innumerable persons to protect, and what people don't understand (and perhaps this is only my personal view) is that not everything, especailly in the world we live in, can be open to public scrutiny. There ARE things that need to be kept private, in the consideration of ongoing investigations, that we have no right to know, and no right to demand we're to be told. I believe in publicized procedures and private results - let me know what's going on, what I can do to protect myself, and then you do the rest of the protecting in accordance to what you find.

I feel for the officers that had to make that decision, and even more for their colleagues who will have to make it in the future. They have been given the order to shoot people in the head, and in these particular cases.. I think that's appropriate. But to now worry that they've made a mistake (which they had) and caused an accident (which they haven't) -will only lead to delayed reflexes. I'm sorry, if I'm on a train and a man with a bomb is getting on, I don't want my policemen moralising the shot to the foot over the one to the head. And I think, if we're all honest - we probably all think that way.

I think it is of the utmost importance that we assign the correct language to this incident. It wasn't an 'accident'. It was a deliberate choice, the pursuivance of orders, and the correct course of action to take. That it resulted in the death of a young man is unfortunate. But it wasn't an accident, it wasn't a blow to civil rights, it wasn't 'malpractice' and it was not some kind of crime.

That the people conducting the 'Public Enquiry' (and I ask.. who in Britain that takes the tube really wants an enquiry?) are suggesting that these policemen be charged with manslaughter is nothing less that abhorrent. That these men are being persecuted, by however few, for doing their job, is frightening. We cannot charge men with crimes when they honestly believed that they were protecting their citizens from what had the possibility (and unfortunate probability) of becoming another terrorist attack. Because if we start prosecuting them.. Then Mr. Bush might as well buy some soap on a rope.

It is a sad thing when we are at a point in our civilization where the death of an innocent man has to be counted in a way such as this. But these are the times we live in, and those are, unfortunately, the consequences. We're all aware of them. That should be the overall conclusion of the public enquiry.